Fractured Souls
by AwkwardedOut
Summary: They were like two broken beings who tried to fill the cracks with one another, to piece together a new whole using the fragments, the vestiges, of one another's fractured souls.
1. Chapter 1

**Fractured Souls**

Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon A Time.

Summary: They were like two broken beings who tried to fill the cracks with one another, to piece together a new whole using the fragments, the vestiges, of one another's fractured souls.

This is mainly just a collection of individual little self-contained scenes. I may connect them in the form of a full story, add in a plot, etc. one day when I have time, but that day is not today.

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

Scene I.

She stared at the sight before her. It was absurd. A god riding a bicycle, or whatever the hell the contraption was called. But he looked so carefree that she felt a pang of envy. That was when the vehicle stopped before her, and he offered an outstretched hand. Ridiculous. He couldn't actually expect her to get on that thing. It was so flimsy, and clearly unstable, and—oh, what the hell.

She climbed onto the bar, but when they didn't set off, she turned to Hades with a questioning look. He had an odd expression on his face, but it wasn't disgust or hatred, as she might have expected. In fact, she didn't know what it was. He brushed it off as nothing when she asked, and she didn't have the chance to inquire further, because that was when he pushed off.

For an instant, the balance of the bicycle shifted and a small feeling of panic rose within her. The contraption was never meant to hold two people, it had been foolish to put her safety in the hands of this god who was clearly insane, and they would both tip off and crash onto the ground… but that didn't happen. Before she knew it, they were soaring through the forest on the bicycle, the wind rushing through her hair. Although the balance was still precarious, promising to throw them both onto the ground with the slightest motion, she no longer cared, and unable to hold it back, a small snort of delight escaped her.

* * *

Scene II.

Hades.

She knew his soul well, had seen it reflected in his eyes, a mirror image of her own—dark, contorted, in constant anguish, fueled by the thought of vengeance, and fractured beyond repair. When he spoke of his brother, she immediately knew him to be a kindred spirit. It was what had sparked that feeling of recognition in her. She could feel her soul lighting up at having found someone who seemed to share her hatred, her bitterness at the unfair hand Fate had dealt them.

It was why, when he professed his love to her, she had wavered in her resolve. Having him so close, and wanting him to come closer still, oh how she had wanted to believe him.

But the darkness had been her home for so long, with hate as her constant companion, and this emotion was new. This feeling that he evoked in her, creeping into her heart like a light in the darkness, was an intruder; it threatened to overpower her, to squeeze her heart so hard as to kill her. She couldn't allow that to happen.

Even as she felt more cracks run through her very being, she sent Hades away. She thought her resolve would break at the look of desolation on his face, but then anger returned to his eyes, replacing the foreign emotion that had been there before, and relief swept through her. Anger was safe, anger she could handle.

A wave of heat engulfed her in the wake of his magic. When the air cooled once more, she gripped the table edge with both hands as she tried to keep the pain at bay. She refused to allow Fate to see how she had nearly fallen for its trick. As if anyone could ever love her; no one had before, and no one ever would. Now, Hades too would hate her, despise her, and that was fine; it was perfectly fine.

* * *

Scene III.

A damaged soul that had seen all the darkness and evil the world had to offer—that was what resided within her. She had long ago known this fact, but had never cared, had even relished in it—that is, until she had met her beautiful baby girl, so pure, so innocent, so full of light. When she held her precious sweet pea in her arms, it felt like a small bit of that light was finding its way through her own personal darkness. It was a light that had been missing nearly her entire life, ever since her adoptive mother's death when she was a child.

Tears brimmed along the edges of her eyes at the memory. Her adoptive mother had been the only person who had ever truly loved her. Perhaps if her illness had not taken her, things would have turned out differently. But that didn't matter anymore, now that she had her baby. Her little Pistachio was the only love of her life. And that was why she had given her up to her sister and her insufferable bandit, because she couldn't protect her child from Hades, but they could—they'd better, or she'd make sure wherever they ended up made the Underworld look like Paradise by comparison.

An ache crawled through her person then. She missed her baby, the warm, squishy, fragile little bundle that she had only gotten to hold a handful of times before being snatched away, again and again. She pressed her forehead against the window pane to stare at the wilderness beyond, wondering where her child was now. Was she warm? Well fed? Safe? Not knowing, being forced to put her trust in Regina and Robin—it killed her. But she would get her child back soon. Nobody was going to stand between her and her baby.

As for Hades, she knew that he had denied wanting to harm the baby, but despite all of his smooth assurances, if he even thought about coming near her child, he would find out first-hand what wicked really looked like—and regret it for the rest of his immortal life.

As if summoned by her thoughts, a blue blaze roared to life across the room. She looked over to find the current object of her ire leaning against the doorframe of her kitchen, all studied composure.

"Don't you know how to knock?" she asked, letting him know he was not welcome there.

"Sorry, was I interrupting something important? Did you have company over?" He made a show of looking around the kitchen, empty save for the two of them. She glowered. "Or were you busy plotting how to get your daughter back, perhaps? I could help with that, you know." He stepped away from the frame and began slowly treading toward her.

With every step he took, her breaths came with just a little more difficulty. "Don't come any closer," she warned, standing. He stopped, but she didn't feel any relief. "What are you doing here, Hades?" she asked warily.

"I wanted to see if you had reconsidered…" he trailed off, substituting the missing words with a gesture, his arm sweeping around the room, but she could feel just how far that gesture extended, beyond the room, beyond the house, beyond the farm and the forest.

She had avoided meeting his gaze this entire time, choosing instead to glare at the wall in front of her. But when he resumed closing the distance between them, she looked over—and immediately regretted it. Looking into his eyes, it felt like the world had fallen away, leaving only the two of them, two broken beings who tried to fill the cracks with one another, to piece together a new whole using the vestiges of one another's fractured souls. But she knew darkness, was all too familiar with the roads it traveled. And no matter how much she may have wanted to believe him, to trust him, she couldn't. She had dealt in magic and manipulation most of her life—knew how real the illusions conjured from loneliness and desolation could seem. She knew that falling for a false reality would only hurt her in the end, would only leave her with more broken shards than when she'd begun.

She tried to respond, but her throat closed around the words. With an effort, she forced them out. "Go haunt someone else, Hades. Leave me alone." There. She'd said it.

"Why do you keep denying us, Zelena?" Although his composure never wavered, the emotion in his eyes belied his true feelings. She didn't want to gaze into them anymore.

"I won't give you power over me!" she spat at him, bitterness, anger and hurt lacing every word. He stared at her, clearly shocked by her outburst, and she was reminded of their parting in Oz.

"Zelena, I don't want power over you. I only want you." Closer now, he reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.

"No. You want me to kiss you and break the curse. Then you can steal my baby and use my time travel spell to enact your revenge. I won't do it. I won't help you hurt my baby," she said.

"I told you all those years ago, I don't want that anymore. I don't care about my brother or Olympus. As for your child, I only want to help you get her back. I know how much she means to you."

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, trying to block out the words. Such a long silence reigned that she thought he had vanished, but then he spoke again.

"If you don't love me, then the kiss wouldn't even work."

She swallowed, unable to argue with his logic, because she knew—had known the instant she'd seen him again in the Underworld. That night walking down the street of the replica town, there had been a tightening in her chest. The emotion that threatened to choke her, to crush her heart with its intensity—though she loathed to admit it—wasn't hate.

"That's it, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"This has nothing to do with your baby. The problem is you. You love me, and you're too scared to admit it."

Her eyes snapped open at his audacity. "How dare you—"

"I'm right, aren't I?" There was no glee in his tone, only resignation and sadness, and it only made her angry.

She gathered all of the composure she could muster, trying not to flinch under his knowing gaze. "I think the eons with only the dead for company has made you delusional, Hades. Let me make it perfectly clear for you: I have never loved you, and I never will. Now leave, or we're going to discover just how immortal you really are."

And just like that, he was gone from the kitchen. No dramatic gestures or showy blue flames, just—gone. She would have congratulated herself on not allowing her voice to waver during the speech, not even once—if only she didn't feel so wretched. She sank down onto the window seat and wrapped her arms around herself to keep the new cracks from spreading further.


	2. Chapter 2

**Fractured Souls**

Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon A Time.

Summary: They were like two broken beings who tried to fill the cracks with one another, to piece together a new whole using the fragments, the vestiges, of one another's fractured souls.

This is mainly just a collection of individual little self-contained scenes. I may connect them in the form of a full story, add in a plot, etc. one day when I have time, but that day is not today.

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

Scene I.

She had once likened Hades' love to that of a light making its way through the darkness, something that threatened her resolve and her revenge. But she knew better now. Hades may have truly loved her, if she were to believe his promises, but that love wasn't nearly as innocent as what she had once thought she'd felt—it was only more darkness. Darkness and turmoil and chaos, all vying for dominance with one another, not realizing that they were in fact one and the same. The longer she stayed with him, the more she realized that she needn't fear light in her life, for that wasn't what the Lord of the Underworld was offering.

He sought out her hands, and simply held them in his own. She had yet to take off her gloves, was afraid that direct contact with him would only perpetuate the spread of corruption to her soul. His touch was soft and gentle, but even through the thick fabric, she could feel the control he exercised behind every maneuver, fighting his nature. It was as he said, this world— _their_ world—was one of destruction. What did either of them know about gentleness? About kindness? About love? But she wanted to know those things, to emulate and embody them, for her daughter. For all the love and kindness the world had denied her all her life, she would give it tenfold—a hundredfold—to her daughter.

Where was her little bundle of joy now? She had tried so hard to do right by her daughter, as her own mother had never done for her. Right. Good. Light. Concepts she hardly knew; ones she'd never cared to learn, until her child had come into her life and turned her world upside down.

"You're thinking about your daughter," Hades' voice broke through her thoughts. Her vision swam, and the Lord of the Dead's features came into focus.

"Well I certainly wasn't thinking about you."

"That hurts, Zelena." She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "It's okay, I'm not offended. It's only natural for a mother to worry about her child."

"What would you know about it?" she snapped.

Hades let out a small sigh in response, accompanied by a slight squeeze of her hands. It was a sign of his anger at being rebuffed, and she felt just a little victorious at having broken through the understanding, reassuring façade at last. Perhaps now she would get to see the true Lord of Death.

An icy hand cupped her face, causing her to freeze. She'd been caught off guard, had let him get too close. Her eyes narrowed, wondering what magic he would conjure, what vindictive punishment he had planned for her.

When nothing happened, she glared at him and said, "Well? Whatever you're going to do, get on with it already."

"Zelena…" She remained reticent, doubt and suspicion warring within her. He didn't' sound upset or angry. If she had to describe it, she would have gone with disappointed.

"You still don't trust me," he continued, "but one day, you will know that I would never hurt you." His hand dropped as he stood, leaving a coolness where it had been on her cheek. An inkling of remorse trickled into her heart, and her arm moved forward to prevent him from walking away, but she forced it down and merely watched him exit the cavern.

* * *

Scene II.

Suddenly, the temperature of the underground cavern dropped several degrees.

"You put Belle… in an enchanted sleep," he repeated. "And why would you do that?" His voice had taken on an icy quality that sent shivers down her spine.

She looked at him and felt the rage hidden beneath the surface. She had known when she'd given Belle the tack imbued with the sleeping curse that she was actively defying Hades by denying him access to the bookworm's child. His anger certainly wasn't unexpected, though the side effect came as a surprise. Nonetheless, she refused to be beaten into submission, and instead raised her chin in defiance.

"The Dark One and the bookworm are no longer in love, she'd said as much. Now that she and the baby are under the sleeping curse, the baby's development will be halted as well. For Rumplestiltskin, that's a punishment worse than death." She allowed her lips to curl into a wicked smile.

There was a long stretch of silence, and she could feel his evaluating gaze trying to pull the thoughts from her mind. She had no idea what he would do next, knew only that he had a vindictive streak to match her own. She ran through all the defense spells she knew. Would her magic even hold up against an onslaught from a god? Perhaps she should go on the offensive instead, get him before he got her. She could at least injure him, surely, allowing her the chance to flee. As she was considering her options, she noticed Hades' own smile come out, and with it, the cavern seemed to warm up a few degrees as well.

"We really are a perfect match for one another, you and I, and I don't just mean our excellent sense of fashion. Thanks to you, Rumplestiltskin's has essentially sentenced himself to eternal torment. That… was absolutely brilliant."

Up until that point, she hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. Now she relaxed minutely, and accepted the compliment with a nod.

Apparently in a good mood, Hades clapped his hands. "Let's go for a walk, what do you say? See how the world outside is doing."

"We're not terrorizing more old ladies, are we?"

"Only if it makes you happy."

"It sounds awfully dull."

"Then we'll wreak chaos some other way. There's no end to the possibilities when you and I are together."

He held out his arm. She wound her own through it, doing her best not to grimace at the almost tangible joy he seemed to radiate as a result of just that one small act.

He called it love; she knew it to be obsession. And sooner or later, this fragile illusion they had created around themselves would shatter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Fractured Souls**

Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon A Time.

Summary: They were like two broken beings who tried to fill the cracks with one another, to piece together a new whole using the fragments, the vestiges, of one another's fractured souls.

This is mainly just a collection of individual little self-contained scenes. I may connect them in the form of a full story, add in a plot, etc. one day when I have time, but that day is not today.

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

He looked so pale, and was becoming paler still; she was literally watching the life drain from his body. She grasped his hands; they had always been cold, but for some reason, they felt like ice now. The cold traveled up her arms and spread throughout her body as she came to terms with the reality before her.

"Hades, you _idiot_ ," she managed to scold, voice thick.

"I really did… just want you to be happy…" The strain of his statement was such a contrast to his usual effortless professions that it almost killed her.

"Then why?" Why try to conquer Storybrooke? Why let this happen?

"I've been trapped in the Underworld for millennia... I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to be with you in the world above, to be able to give you everything your sister had, not just an imitation filled with lost and decrepit souls..." She could feel each word exacting a greater toll from him.

"I was being selfish…" Hades admitted ruefully, letting out a strained laugh. "I really did just… want you to be happy," he repeated, full of remorse.

"I know," she told him soothingly. He smiled weakly. "I would have stayed with you. It would have been enough." A sentiment she had never realized was true until that moment. She waited, but there was no reply. It was too little too late.

Her throat closed as she made an effort to hold back the sobs trying to claw their way out of her. She hugged herself to stop the tremors running through her body, and closed her eyes against the vision of the world crumbling around her.

"Zelena! We have to go!" Regina's voice was barely audible over the roaring in her ears; it seemed to come from a mile away, although she knew that her sister was but a few feet from her position on the cold stone floor.

"Zelena!" Her sister's voice was more insistent this time, with a note of panic to it. She made an effort to move past the fog in her mind and focus on the words. "…unstable… escape…" The words didn't make sense, but she wasn't terribly inclined to care.

"… _save your_ _daughter_!" Her daughter… The word resonated within her.

Suddenly the fog retreated from her mind, and the numbness in her limbs gave way to motion. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself, but it did nothing to stop her shaking. If anything, it only got worse. Turning around, she found the heroes further away than she remembered, standing at the edge of one of the rivers that flowed beneath the cavern.

Pebbles shaken loose from their niches in the cavern's ceiling fell in a steady stream, splashing into the waters surrounding them, and she realized that the shaking hadn't been coming from her; her world wasn't crumbling—the cavern was. The re-constructed Underworld had been held together by Hades' magic. With Hades dead, the magic that had given the realm its current form was disintegrating, threatening to bury them all as it returned to its original appearance.

* * *

Silence. Darkness. Cold… It all amounted to the same thing in the end—emptiness. He had thought the eons had been lonely before, but they were nothing compared to now. Now, he was well and truly alone. Trapped for all eternity, with only his thoughts for company; unable to die, unable to move on—a fate befitting someone who had prevented all the countless souls entrusted to him from finding peace. It was his own fault; he couldn't even blame his brother this time. Zeus couldn't have engineered a more cruel prison if he had tried.

For just a short while, he had seen the glimmer of a future beyond the confines of his curse. If he had quit while he'd been ahead, perhaps things would be different now. He'd have Zelena by his side, her laughter and her voice filling the cavern, echoing through the corridors; her kiss starting his heart anew…

The thought of his wicked witch stirred something in his chest. A pang. The remnant of what could have been. The memory of her gleeful cackle chased away some of the cold. Unheeding, his mind became filled with more remembrances—her smile, disbelieving when he'd told her he'd created this world for her; a different smile, fragile and terrified; and then the last sight that had filled his eyes—her tearful expression gazing down at him. That vision was dragged out, unending. The Fates must have really gotten a kick out of designing this particular torture, allowing him to see Zelena mourning him, but being unable to reach out to her.

He longed to reach out and wipe the tears away. He thought it was his imagination when tiny pinpricks of pain raced through his arm and he felt warm droplets against his skin. Bitterly, he cursed the Fates once more for toying with him. Zelena burst into fresh tears and there was a sudden weight on his chest, accompanied by muffled sobs that caused a faint roaring in his ears. And here he thought his eternal torment couldn't get any worse.

If only he could say something to her. Comfort her.

After a moment, the crying diminished and he could feel the weight lifting. Then her voice rang in his mind, "Hades, here I am bawling my eyes out, and you're just going to let me keep on? Say _something_. You'd better not be enjoying this, or I _swear_ …" Her sentence trailed off, her tone all the threat anyone needed. The roar grew stronger and stronger still, before finally settling into a pounding that he felt more than heard. It was erratic at first, but eventually settled into a steady rhythm.

"Don't you think I want to?" he wanted to shout back, to be heard over the pounding.

"Well then what's stopping you!?"

Confusion overcame him. "You… Did you hear me just now?"

"Who else would I be talking to? You egomaniac, you were enjoying my suffering," she accused.

"What… I wasn't…" He tried to sit up, but more pinpricks attacked his limbs and he fell back against the stone. "I don't understand… I was lost…" he whispered. When no reply was forthcoming, he turned his head to find Zelena avoiding looking at him, instead glaring stubbornly at a point in the distance. He felt a burst of warmth and love for her. It spread through his entire being, lighting up areas of his heart he had long forgotten existed.

That was when realization dawned on him. She must have seen the comprehension in his eyes, because she only glared harder, this time at him.

A wave of affection overcame him, and laughter spilled from his lips, laughter he could feel from his very soul, because it just made her that much more beautiful.


End file.
